ORGANIC EVOLUTION RECONSIDERED. 133 
certain cells a period is reached when they display the behav- 
ior, physiologically, of their parents. Yet gout is a disease 
that can be traced to peculiar habits of living and may be 
eventually escaped by radical changes in this respect—that is 
to say, the behavior of the cells leading to gout can be induced 
and can be altered; gout is hereditary, yet eradicable. 
Just as gout may be set up by formation of certain modes 
of action of the cells of the body, so may a mode of behavior, in 
the nervous system, for example, become organized or fixed, be- 
come a habit, and so be transmitted to offspring. It will pass 
to the descendants or not according to the principles already 
noticed. If so fixed in the individual in which it arises as to 
predominate over more ancient methods of cell behavior, and 
not neutralized by the strength of the normal physiological ac- 
tion of the corresponding parts in the other parent, it will reap- 
pear. We can never determine whether this is so or not before- 
hand; hence the fact that it is impossible, especially in the case 
of man, whose vital processes are so modified by his psychic 
life, to predict whether acquired variations shall become heredi- 
tary ; hence also the irregularity which characterizes heredity 
in such cases; they may reappear in offspring or they may not. 
In viewing heredity and modification it is impossible to get a 
true insight into the matter without taking into the account 
both original natural tendencies of living matter and the influ- 
ence of environment. We only know of vital manifestations 
in some environment; and, so far as our experience goes, life is 
impossible apart from the influence of surroundings. With 
these general principles to guide us, we shall attempt a brief 
examination of the leading theories of organic evolution. 
First of all, Spencer seems to be correct in regarding evolu- 
tion as universal, and organic evolution but one part of a 
whole. No one who looks at the facts presented in every field 
of nature can doubt that struggle (opposition, action and reac- 
tion) is universal, and that in the organic world the fittest to a 
given environment survives. But Darwin has probably fixed 
his attention too closely on this principle and attempted to ex- 
plain too much by it, as well as failed to see that there are 
other deeper facts underlying it. Variation, which this author 
scarcely attempted to explain, seems to us to be the natural re- 
sult of the very conditions under which living things have an 
existence. Stable equilibrium is an idea incompatible with our 
fundamental conceptions of life. Altered function implies al- 
tered molecular action, which sometimes leads to appreciable 
